About Children First
Children First, formerly Public Citizens for Children and Youth (PCCY), is a dynamic, fast-paced child advocacy organization focused on improving the lives of children by building support and momentum to improve local, state and/or federal policies that can promote racial and economic equity for children as they grow up in southeastern Pennsylvania. Our staff is a group of highly motivated individuals who are passionate about improving the lives of children and youth. Through bipartisan advocacy, we have a record of winning scale level changes that do just that. To be successful at Children First you must enjoy collaborating and helping coworkers do their best and contribute to a respectful workplace that values a commitment to racial diversity, having fun, and making an impact.
Children First has 4 open positions:
- Children’s Health Policy Director
- Hispanic Child Policy Project Director
- Digital Content Creator (contract)
- Director de Políticas de Educación Infantil
Children’s Health Policy Director
Overview
Join Children First PA in improving the lives of our region’s children through initiatives and advocacy for the building blocks of opportunity – equitable access to healthcare, high-quality early education and childcare, public education, and dependency and delinquency systems that heal.
As the Health Policy Director you will mobilize coalitions and play a critical leadership role in setting and advancing local and state policy priorities to improve children’s health and access to healthcare. This is an ideal position for someone who is passionate about our children’s future, experienced in policy and advocacy, and adept at leading teams to get results for Southeastern PA’s youngest residents.
Candidate Profile
A strategic and dynamic leader with a proven track record of effectively leading stakeholder processes and mobilizing coalitions for improving policy. Competitive candidates will be persuasive and adept communicators, creating data-informed reports, policy briefs, and other written and verbal messages that influence diverse audiences and move children’s health policy priorities forward. The ideal candidate will have professional experience and knowledge of children’s health issues (e.g., CHIP, lead paint poisoning, behavioral health), advocacy, and politics. The successful candidate will be an adaptable children’s health policy strategist, inspiring and energizing supervisor, and effective coalition builder who thrives in a mission-driven organization.
Required Skills
- Policy Knowledge: Knowledge of children’s health policy issues and experience developing and executing strategy & tactics to advance policy improvement and adoption.
- Advocacy Knowledge: Professional experience understanding and advancing legislative goals and leading coalitions, including the ability to develop strategies and tactics that persuade legislators and elected officials, and the ability to organize, mobilize, and facilitate widespread community participation.
- Stakeholder Relationship Management Skills: Ability to cultivate, manage, and grow relationships with diverse policymaker, parent/caregiver, and other networks and coalitions.
- Advanced Communication Skills: Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to communicate policy issues and priorities, relevant data, etc., clearly and persuasively.
- Strategic and Critical Thinking: Ability to see the big picture and develop strategy and aligned tactics to achieve policy outcomes. Ability to critically assess a situation, information, etc., and(re)calibrate strategy accordingly.
- Data and Trend Analysis Skills: Strategic and detail-oriented ability to collect, interpret, and simplify large datasets in support of policy priorities and advocacy goals.
- Media Savvy: Professional experience using social, news, and other media to amplify efforts towards a cause and policy improvement
- Management/Supervision Experience: Minimum 3 years of experience managing and supervising a team with a spirit of collaboration and empowerment to help achieve team goals.
- Adaptability/Flexibility: Ability to work independently and with others in a hybrid, dynamic environment.
- Planning Skills: Strong project management and strategy development skills aligned with policy priorities and legislative calendar, etc.
- Organized: Ability to prioritize and manage multiple priorities.
- Proficiency with Technology: Facility with Excel and Word, web-based research, social media platforms.
Key Responsibilities
Lead the development and implementation of advocacy strategies to advance state and local policy priorities that improve children’s health and access to healthcare by:
- Developing messaging documents
- Recruiting community leaders to participate in Children First’s advocacy
- Creating and expanding broad based coalitions
- Mobilize people in Children First’s children’s health networks and parents/caregivers toshape health policy through civic engagement
- Communicate with key policymakers about children’s health policy priorities
- Monitor trends and collect and analyze data on children’s health policy in order to (1)identify unmet needs and persistent challenges and (2) establish priority issues
- Monitor news, social, and other media
- Develop & execute multimedia strategies to amplify children’s health policy efforts
- Assure grant objectives are met according to schedule
- Contribute to grantwriting and funder relationship management
- Write compelling reports that advance Children First’s children’s health policy goals.Develop and execute dissemination plans.
Supervise the children’s health policy team including the Behavioral Health Policy Coordinator, Children’s Health Policy Associate, Lead Free Promise Project Consultant, and Health Policy Consultant.
Location: Candidates should be local to the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area or willing to relocate. This is a hybrid position requiring at least two full days in the office.
Reports to: Director ejecutivo
Salario: $110,000 to $120,000 depending on experience
Aplicar: Resume and cover letter to info@childrenfirstpa.org.
Hispanic Child Policy Project Director
Overview
Children First ambitiously works to remove the obstacles in the way of a great childhood for every child. We think big, creating new programs or systems at scale that offer children what they need, especially children of color and those growing in families with limited financial means. For instance, when working class families could not afford health insurance for their children, we led the grassroots campaign to create the PA Children’s Health Insurance Program that now makes it possible for nearly every child to be insured. Locally, we galvanized Philadelphians to support the sweetened beverage tax that gives 5,000 children free access to great pre-k programs. We are looking to add a leader to our team to work within the Hispanic community to create a shared vision for making the lives of Hispanic children better and uniting behind game changing policies that ensure Philadelphia’s Hispanic children are prepared for a lifetime of success. While the project we are undertaking is expected to take one year to complete, it will make a lasting contribution to the lives of these children.
Why you do this
The Hispanic Child Policy Project Director will lead a 12-month community input, data gathering and planning project to construct a preliminary policy and advocacy agenda focused on big system changes that improve the lives of Hispanic children. This is a unique opportunity if you are passionate about our children’s future, experienced in policy and advocacy, and adept at leading teams to get results for these children and pave the way for years of sustained and powerful advocacy to achieve the vision and system changes outline in the agenda.
Candidate profile
The right candidate is a leader with strong strategic thinking skills able to design and lead a 12-month community input, data gathering and planning project to construct a preliminary policy and advocacy agenda and proposed structure for supporting the agenda all aimed at moving Philadelphia closer to meeting the needs of Hispanic children in Philadelphia. We are looking for a leader with keen start-up instincts with a tested set of technical and interpersonal skills that can unify stakeholders.
Professional Characteristics
- Engagement Process Management – Create and facilitate effective processes that identify and recruit key stakeholders, engage individuals in deliberations, track engagement, and pro-actively build sub-networks among those engaged.
- Writing/Presentation Development that Promotes Collaboration – Use technical writing and information presentation skills to create documents that support collaboration and decision-making including clear meeting agendas, meeting summaries, decision-making memos, and briefing documents that effectively present data, context and solutions.
- Strategic Judgement and Action – Understand and manage the nuances associated with unifying disparate stakeholders for the purpose of policy and advocacy, be nimble and respond to needs of those with particular interests, identify and optimize opportunities associated with particularly stakeholder interests or resources, and pro-actively solve substantive conflicts using effective collaboration/mediation techniques.
- Start-up Instincts – Be a risk taker that is comfortable with launching ambiguous processes/ goals, and via effective and thoughtful processes achieve clarity with respect to purpose, goals, objectives, structure and accountability mechanisms.
- Managing Group Processes to Make Decisions – Experience designing effective meeting processes that gather useful data and enable a broad cross section of individuals to reach agreement on processes, problems and solutions.
- Patience and Persistence – Eagerness to spend time in one-to-one conversations with stakeholders to build engagement in policy/advocacy discussions, experience making effective cases for engagement and for policies, capacity to crystalize key points so that engagement is productive and leads to action.
Responsabilidades
- Outreach and Engagement – Engage a broad cross section of Hispanic grasstops and emerging leaders and community residents in ongoing discussions about the data in the Pa’lante report with the goal of gathering qualitative data that comports or differs from the known data, identify areas where additional research is needed to inform effective policy solutions.
- Promotion – Inform reporters, columnists and other key media stakeholders about the findings in the Pa’Lante report and work with them to create highly visible venues to increase public discussion of the report findings and need for action. Key outlets include Spanish speaking media, traditional media outlets and social media influencers.
- Relationship Development and Management – Build and maintain ongoing connections with peer organizations, individuals and collaborations conducting research about the Hispanic communities in Philadelphia and those examining the needs of children to discuss areas where more research is needed to either better understand challenges and/or inform policy solutions with the goal of meeting the full range of needs of Hispanic children.
- Organization Building – Develop a proposed structure(s) for consideration among key stakeholders for guiding and advising the processes and approaches for steps 1-3 and manage the operation of the agreed to structure.
- Project Planning – Create and manage a 12-month timeline that supports the relationship management, information sharing and decision-making processes necessary to reach agreement on a preliminary policy agenda and organizational structure to launch the agenda.
Location: Candidates should be local to the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area or willing to relocate. This is a hybrid position requiring one full day in the office per week in addition to periodic in-person meetings.
Reports to: Director ejecutivo
Salario: $90,000 to $110,000 with full benefits depending on experience
Aplicar: Resume and cover letter to info@childrenfirstpa.org.
Digital Content Creator (contract)
Scope of Work
Social media is an essential tool for Children First to engage the general public to advance public policy that benefits children and teens. We are seeking to enter into a contract with a digital content creator(s) who will develop video and text for social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok) in order to amplify our advocacy efforts.
The digital content creator will be responsible for the idea, execution, and posting of effective social media content at the direction of Children First. This includes travel throughout southeastern Pennsylvania and Harrisburg to capture footage of Children First events, legislative meetings, and in-person interviews.
Children First covers a range of child policy topics including early education, K-12 education, juvenile justice, health, mental health, and parent and youth engagement. The ideal vendor would have the capacity to generate social media content on these topics and have a proven track record in 1) digital storytelling, 2) hard-hitting political messages, and 3) fun/entertaining content that presents complicated issues in a relatable way.
This scope of work can be broken down in multiple contracts with vendors depending on technical/creative capabilities (digital storytelling, hard-hitting political messages, fun/entertaining content) or issue expertise.
Contract Deliverables
- Develop a clear strategy to increase advocacy engagements, post likes and shares, and social media channel followers.
- Implement the strategy after soliciting feedback from staff.
- Meet weekly for editorial direction.
- Develop storyboards, design, and key messaging before production.
- Optimize posts by using available analytics to continually improve the reach.
Minimum Qualifications
- A person or firm with an established track record of followers and visibility (minimum on 7,000) on Facebook, Instagram, X, and/or TikTok.
- Qualified vendors should be able to demonstrate management of social media accounts with a minimum of 7,000 followers.
- Established social media portfolio.
- Excellent editing, organizational, and time management skills.
- Ability to work independently and collaboratively.
- Ability to work quickly without compromising quality or accuracy.
- Ability to travel throughout southeastern Pennsylvania and
- Spanish fluency language a plus.
Informes a: Communications Director
To apply: Send a letter of interest which indicates your area(s) of expertise – digital storytelling, hard-hitting political messages, fun/entertaining content – and link(s) to a related social media portfolio to info@childrenfirstpa.org.
Compensation: commensurate with experience.
Director de Políticas de Educación Infantil
Resumen de posición
Children First plays a leadership role in setting and advancing local and state policy priorities to create a high quality of system of supports for children under the age of five in Philadelphia and the surrounding Pennsylvania counties. We are seeking to add a leader to our team with a proven track record of effectively leading stakeholder processes and coalitions to effect public will to improve public policy.
Funciones clave:
- Lead the development and implementation of advocacy strategies to advance state and local policy priorities that meet the needs of infants, toddlers, and pre-school aged children by developing messaging documents, recruiting community leaders to participate in our advocacy, and creating and expanding broad based coalitions.
- Mobilize people in Children First’s early childhood networks and parents/caregivers to shape health policy through civic engagement
- Communicate with key policymakers about early childhood priorities
- Monitor trends and collect and analyze data on early childhood policy in order to identify unmet needs and persistent challenges, and establish priority issues
- Write and execute plans for dissemination of compelling reports that advance our early childhood policy goals
- Supervise the early childhood team including the Racial Equity Coordinator, Provider Council Coordinator, and Advocacy Associate
Calificaciones, educación, experiencia y habilidades:
- Knowledge of major PA state early childhood policy issues including Keystone Stars, Pre-K affordability and access, wages in the childcare sector, paid family leave, and racial equity
- Experience understanding and advancing legislative goals and leading coalitions
- Ability to organize, mobilize and facilitate widespread community participation
- Proficiency in data analysis associated with health statistics, demographic analysis and related data-related research
- Advanced written and oral communication skills
- At least three years management experience with supervisory responsibilities
- Experience using social media tools to boost advocacy impact
- Strong desire to lead the early childhood team with a spirit of collaboration and empowering your team to help achieve team goals
Important Skills:
- Ability to work independently and with others in a hybrid work environment
- Works well under pressure while prioritizing and managing multiple projects
- Detail oriented with the ability to collect, interpret, and simplify large datasets
- Very strong written and oral communication skills
- Ability to travel to communities across the region – must have driver’s license and access to a reliable vehicle
- Proficient in excel, word, google and social media platforms
Informes a: Director ejecutivo
Salario: Between $100,000-110,000 depending on experience
Aplicar: Resumes are being collected by DiverseForce. Email your resume to Kori Beaman at CFECE@DiverseForce.com by August 16, 2024, using the subject line: Idealist – ECE Policy Director. This is the final date for applications. Please disregard dates noted elsewhere on the job site. Confirmation of receipt of application will be sent by return email. Virtual screening with preferred candidates will be arranged forthwith. No phone calls, please.
Pasantías
Children First interns gain knowledge and experience in child advocacy and public policy. Interns participate in all aspects of our work including attending rallies, conducting research on children’s issues and creating materials to support our mission of providing better lives and life chances for children in southeastern Pennsylvania. At this time, we are only able to offer unpaid internships that are needed as part of college course requirements. For more information, contact: info at childrenfirstpa.org
Children First is an inclusive, equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate in hiring.